Free The Ivy by Lauren Kunze, Rina Onur

!”
    “You mean Michael San del , the Communitarian?” Callie corrected her. “He is kind of famous . . . and I bet the course is good if that many people show up to take it. . . .”
    Vanessa let her bags, and her jaw, sink dramatically toward the floor. “Honestly, Cal, I cannot believe you sometimes! Who cares whether or not the class is good; it’s all about the environment, the people, and the vibe.”
    “What?” mumbled Callie. She picked up her day planner and verified that Mondays and Wednesdays at one o’clock were free.
    “Haven’t you realized that we have yet to go on a single date?” asked Vanessa. “Our romantic involvements thus far have been limited to getting dumped—that was you—random hookups, sleazy seniors, and don’t even get me started on Mimi’s nightly sexcapades. It’s completely unacceptable.”
    Callie was silent.
    “Anyway, what I’ve finally realized is this: we’ve been looking in all the wrong places: seniors, upperclassmen . . . it’s never going to work. We have to tap the untapped resources, discover the uncut diamonds in the rough. . . . We have to find us . . .”
    She paused dramatically.
    “A freshman.”
    Callie rolled her eyes.
    “Stop—I know what you’re thinking!” Vanessa continued. “Two weeks ago I was all for ‘upperclassmen only,’ too, but today I realized something. I was doing a little research”—and by research, she meant Facebook stalking—“and do you remember that guy I hooked up with the other night? Jeffrey?”
    “I think it was Jeremy.”
    “Whatever. I found out today that he has a girlfriend. She’s a senior, too, but get this: she is busted . And not just too-ugly- to-make-the-cheerleading-squad ugly, or got-cut-from-the-first-round-of- America’s-Next-Top Model ugly, but, like, ugly-you-look-deformed ugly.”
    Callie giggled, finally setting The Q Guide aside.
    “So I’m thinking, ‘What gives?’ He’s like, super hot, and his girlfriend looks like Marilyn Manson. Why stick with crotchety old Manson when you could have a youthful Monroe?”
    Callie thought that a “youthful Monroe” was a little generous for Vanessa, but she waited, intrigued nevertheless.
    “That’s when it hits me. Shovel-face over here must have started dating what’s-his-name during their freshman year, four years ago, before he realized he was hot! Before he even was hot. You have to catch them when they’re young and still at the bottom of the food chain, before they can appreciate their own potential, and then you raise them to adore you, to rely on you, to need you. Get it? It’s like a . . . it’s like a . . . fish farm! That’s it! Project Fish Farm. Don’t you see? Justice is the ideal pond.”
    Callie laughed as she pictured Vanessa going to class with an enormous net and lassoing a bunch of poor, pimpled, unsuspecting freshman boys and dragging them kicking and screaming to a giant pool of water surrounded by a tall, wired fence. Fish Farm : a boot camp for future husbands of the certifiably insane. Watching it would be better than watching reality TV.
    “Okay, you win,” Callie capitulated. “But if I take Justice with you, will you take Ec 10 with me?”
    “Investment strategies and future venture capitalists? Now you’re talking sense!”
    Callie shook her head and pulled out her study card, adding Justice underneath Ec 10 and Expos .
    “Great!” she cried, starting to relax. “Three down, only one more to go! Now listen to a description of this English class called the Nineteenth-Century Novel—”
    Callie stopped midsentence as OK barged into the common room, panting. His face shone with sweat. Frantically he wheeled around and bolted the lock on the door.
    “Well,” said Vanessa loudly, “I’m glad you could finally make it to our open house event. Would you like a special tour of the premises?”
    OK gave her a blank stare, apparently impervious to sarcasm. “Do you—” He paused. “Please pardon the